CHINESE INDUSTRIAL CONDITIONS GROWTH SLOWS

Members of the Bai (L) and Dai ethnic minorities indigenous to China's southwestern province Yunnan drink Coca-Cola at the Stone Forest in Kunming March 18. The soft drink giant Coca-Cola formally opens its Kunming bottling plant on March 20 and is one of the first Fortune 500 companies to make a major investment in Yunnan province, one of China's poorest and least industrialized. Reuters The purchasing manger's index for China's industrial sector excluding non-manufacturing fell to 53.4 from 54.6, the lowest reading in more than a year, according to the South China Morning Post.

The index, released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), is based on a survey by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing of nearly 1,200 firms in 27 industries, including construction, transport and telecommunications.